


Down the Rabbit Hole

by minglingcrab



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Alternate Reality, Crack, Humor, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-05
Updated: 2010-01-05
Packaged: 2017-10-05 19:57:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minglingcrab/pseuds/minglingcrab
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Before anything else happens," Adam says, "please, Kris, explain to me why you started chasing that rabbit."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Down the Rabbit Hole

**Author's Note:**

> The [](http://community.livejournal.com/aianonlovefest/profile)[](http://community.livejournal.com/aianonlovefest/)**aianonlovefest** prompt asked for a lulzy height swap, and my muse interpreted that as an _Alice in Wonderland_ AU. Um...sorry about that? I do want to go back at some point and write something that actually fills the prompt, because I love it. Also, I just want to do a little dance now that I've finally finished writing this, because I know it looks like a short bit of mindless fluff, but it's actually a monster that has been trying to murder me in my sleep for something like a month now.   *Dances* 
> 
> Beta by roga, and bless her, because this made no sense at all the first time she read it.

**4:12 p.m. **  
  
Adam draws in a deep breath and lets it out slowly, which makes him seem _less_freaked out to Kris, rather than more. That’s a little backwards, because even if it isn't like Adam is _losing_ it or anything, what he _is _doingis not even pretending that this is manageable anymore. But it makes sense in Kris’ head, so, whatever, Kris is unrepentantly relieved that Adam isn't putting on his professional face, his meet-the-press-and-handle-this-shit face, his smiling, confident game face; he's deep breathing, and just _Adam,_ and is therefore the best thing Kris could have in front of him right now.   
  
Well. The best thing outside of a mad scientist or a magician or anybody, really, who might know what that hell is going on.  
  
"Before anything else happens,” Adam says, “please, Kris, explain to me why you started chasing that rabbit.”  
  
Which is definitely the right question to be asking here. The rabbit was the cause of all of this. The rabbit has a lot to answer for. Kris squirms uncomfortably. “It was cute?”   
  
Adam nods understandingly. “You're a dumbass.”  
  
**11: 26 a.m.**  
  
Adam hadn't actually been sold on the idea of a day at the lake in the first place. "This is supposed to be a day _off_."  
  
"Funny." Kris was the one with the car keys; he flipped them around his finger. "Come on, I don't want to hit traffic."  
  
Adam pursed his lips. He didn't shift his position or fold his arms intimidatingly or anything, but suddenly, he was looking…implacable. “There are a million things we could do right here in the city. I really–"   
  
"Come on, man, don't you want to get _away_ for a day?" Like that was even an actual question. Adam never had any time to himself anymore. "Really away. It's basically deserted up there during the week."  
  
"Deserted," Adam repeated.   
  
"Yeah. No one will bother us." Adam didn't even look like he was listening, his eyes dipping lazily towards Kris' mouth instead until Kris coughed sternly to get his attention.   
  
Adam's gaze flicked quickly upwards. "I don't think I want to visit a deserted lake. Sounds like the setting for a horror movie."   
  
Adam sucked. It wasn't a _hike_ or anything too sporty, and Adam couldn't even be bothered to listen long enough to find that out. They hadn't really hung out since _tour. _.  
  
Kris gave Adam his most pitiful pout, blinked big and sad and pathetic. "Don't you even _like_ me anymore?"   
  
Adam rolled his eyes, but Kris’ puppy dog face was very, very powerful. Although–Kris' stomach dropped a little. Because, well, he'd _planned_ this and it was supposed to be relaxing, it was something that Adam was supposed to enjoy, and the mechanics of trying to carry Adam to the car against his will were really the smallest issue here if Adam just plain didn't _want_ to–  
  
“Oh, cut that out. I get control of the radio." Adam was already passing Kris and heading around to the other side of the car, his cologne tickling Kris' nose as his shoulder brushed by.  
  
**1:02 p.m. **  
  
Adam had seemed dazed right after they landed. Kris was dazed, too, but he was too busy spitting out mouthfuls of leaves to get bogged down with it. Mushy leaves that tasted like earth, with spiky veins that jabbed at his tongue.  
  
"Sorry about landing on top of you," Adam said.   
  
“It’s okay.” Kris spat again. It was yellow and thick and so, so horribly disgusting to think that it had come out of his mouth. “It was pretty steep at the end there.”   
  
He jumped when a hand smacked his ass.   
  
“Oh, fuck, that’s never going to come out.” Adam wrinkled his nose and continued to brush briskly over Kris' legs. Kris looked down his back to see–a dirt stain, and Adam’s hands, one holding Kris’ hip steady. 

Kris took a minute to breathe, so that he could be clearheaded when he considered whether Adam was _really_ concerned with laundry issues at a time like this.  
  
He obeyed the urge to spit again; it was still yellow, but at least there weren’t any pieces in it this time. He squinted up the way they’d fallen, past the graininess in his eyes. There really shouldn’tbe enough light for him to clearly note the color of his spit. Especially with the way the tunnel curved. It was really kind of weird. Light coming from nowhere.  
  
Adam moved on to a vigorous attack on Kris' shoulders.   
  
“Hey, it's okay.” Kris shrugged away from Adam's hands and turned to face him. “We should probably–”   
  
“Jesus, your face is gross.”  
  
Kris blinked. “What?”   
  
“Seriously, I am so sorry for squashing you into... whatever that is.” Adam sucked one cheek into his mouth and pondered. “I have sanitizer in my bag.” He shrugged. “But that's useless. Okay. We should–” He cut himself off, paused in the act of digging his phone out of his pocket. “Are you hurt? Did I hurt you?”  
  
“What?” It took Kris a second to catch up. “No, no, I'm fine. Adam, I think this is a rabbit warren. It's–”  
  
“Rabbit warren?” Adam waved his cell phone around, peering at it to see whether reception had improved. Kris counted eight twigs in his hair. “Come on, I think it's picking up a signal.”  
  
Kris tried to think whether it could logically be picking up a signal. He snorted out some more dirt.  
  
“Adam–”  
  
“I should probably check you for injuries.” Adam started to reach out and stopped. His nose was very, very dirty and kind of scratched-up looking. “Are you sure you aren't injured?”  
  
Kris gave up on anything resembling an actual conversation with Adam, for the time being. “Yes.”  
  
Adam stared for a second and then grimaced abruptly at his phone again. “I should call them to complain about this. No signal bullshit.” He looked up at Kris again. “You're sure you're not hurt at all?”  
  
"I'm fine.”  
  
Adam studied the slime coating Kris' face. “That's really disgusting.”  
  
“I'm trying,” Kris said with dignity, “not to think about it.”  
  
“Okay.” Adam inhaled through his nose. “We're okay. Come on.”  
  
O_kay _didn’t seem like it should involve hunting down cell phone reception at the bottom of a rabbit hole, but he followed Adam anyway.  
  
**4:13 p.m.**  
  
Not that it's exactly out of the blue for Adam to be calling him a dumbass, considering, well, where they are, and..._how_, but it isn't like Kris landed them here on purpose. He isn't sure whether Adam has just suddenly realized that they're totally screwed or what, but seriously, chasing a rabbit isn't nearly the stupidest thing Kris has ever done. It can't even compete with the time he gave that hooker five dollars because he thought she was begging for change.  
  
Anyway, being short and stuck underground isn't so very different from being tall and stuck underground. Kris, of all people, can confirm that much. Besides, little Adam is...cute.   
  
“I don't even come up to your shoulder,” Adam says.  
  
“It wasn't my idea to drink that stuff, you know.”   
  
“I'm barely as tall as your _shoulder_.” Adam frowns twitchily at the row of doors and the little three-legged table in the center of the room. Kris is a few inches taller than the doors, now. “Lesson learned. Never follow Kris when he starts randomly chasing small woodland creatures."  
  
"A squirrel stole my guitar pick one time in the park," Kris says.  
  
"Did you follow it into a tree?" Adam says.  
  
**12:33 p.m.**  
  
For someone who had supposedly decided _not _to give Kris a hard time about the lake trip, Adam had commented _way_ too much on the food. And not even to complain that it was going to make him fat, but, like, _weird _commenting. Weirdly…significant.  
  
"Oysters?" he said evenly when Kris began to unpack the picnic basket.  
  
"Asparagus salad," he added meditatively as another tin appeared on the blanket.  
  
"Apple banana date cake and chocolate truffles?"  
  
"And a platter of ribs!" Kris said happily, setting it down next to the bottles of wine. He was a little ashamed that he'd put his assistant in charge of getting stuff together, but he really didn't have the time to do it himself. He'd picked up the barbecue, though. The sauce had leaked from the top and smeared all over his fingers as he put it down, so he stuck them in his mouth and looked up to find Adam staring at him, lower lip caught in his teeth.  
  
"What?"  
  
Adam blinked once; shrugged after a minute. "There may or may not be something very wrong with you," he said.  
  
Kris couldn't really be offended when he had no idea what Adam was talking about.  
  
"Oysters," Adam muttered, shaking his head, and dug into the pate.  
  
**1:07 p.m.**  
  
When they'd turned the corner into the hallway lined with doors and lamps–the one where they are still, hours later, pathetically stuck– Adam had looked around, noting the little glass table in the middle of the open space.  
  
“Well, this is pretty fucking weird."  
  
Kris checked his own cell phone, because it was maybe even weird enough for underground cell phone reception.  
  
“People obviously come here,” Adam said, examining the doors and finding them all locked from this side. “It's so clean. We should wait here until someone finds us.”   
  
“How long will that be, though?” Kris said, keeping his voice level. Maybe it was clean because some underground elf cleaning lady came by and took care of it. Maybe she wasn’t due to show up for another week, and they’d kind of need food before then. Like, right away, even, because Kris wasn’t full from their picnic; they’d barely had a chance to get started.   
  
Adam turned around and for a second Kris thought that he was going to ask–for the hundredth time–whether Kris was really okay. Kris crossed the room and hugged him before he could open his stupid mouth, because holy hell did Adam need to cut that out. Adam was so tense, which, okay, of course he was, because they were stuck in a freakish rabbit lair with a lot of doors, but after a minute he exhaled and hugged back with one arm.   
  
“You’re getting sludge on my shirt,” Adam said into his hair, and Kris rubbed his face back and forth, clearing away the last of the slime.   
  
"That–was so not the idea there." Adam was practically breathless with indignation, trying to push Kris away.   
  
"I'll buy you a new one," Kris assured him.   
  
Adam looked down at his shirt and Kris simultaneously. It was already a mess, anyway, so Kris figured it didn't matter anymore and snuggled into his happy place, his face tucked into Adam's neck. This was kind of bad, this whole thing right here, but Adam trying so hard not to freak out was not helping matters.  
  
"Come on, we have bigger problems than your wardrobe," Kris said, closing his eyes and feeling Adam swallow, his throat swelling and relaxing against Kris' cheek.   
  
Adam was both easing down and not, making a noise that really couldn't be labeled as anything but a _grunt_. "Obviously. Yes. We have bigger problems than my wardrobe." His hand opened a little, though, and slipped loosely down Kris' back.  
  
**3:54 a.m.**  
  
Maybe they were too relaxed after that. Not that they were really _relaxed_, but it was hard to sustain real concern for very long because nothing all that bad was actually _happening_. They were just...stuck. They'd lasted a few hours before they'd split the contents of the little bottle labeled _Drink __Me_.   
  
Kris was initially opposed to the idea, even if the nutrition facts advertised full measures of at least twelve minerals he could not possibly be getting enough of on his own, but Adam was kind of fed up with Kris whining about how hungry he was.  
  
“Okay. Look at it this way,” Adam said eventually, and a little wearily. “Anyone who leaves around a bottle with a label like that wants people to have a drink badly enough that he or she has actually gone and requested it in writing.”   
  
“Okay,” Kris agreed, following so far.   
  
“So someone around here either wants to feed us, poison us, or render us unconscious and do unspeakable things to us. If they just want to feed us, maybe they'll be offended if we don't take them up on their kindness, and by not drinking we'll have made friends into enemies. And if they want to harm us, if we sit around here long enough they'll see we have no way to defend ourselves and they'll just come after us with clubs anyway, so we might as well keep our strength up, right?”   
  
There was no arguing with impeccable logic, so while Adam took a swig, Kris took a large bite out of the cake he'd just spotted on the table. It had the words _Eat Me_ on top in thick icing, and the same line of reasoning would seem to apply. His bite was more than half, but Adam had totally just tossed back more than half the bottle, so. Fair play. Adam shrugged and popped the half-cake in his mouth.   
  
Even Kris wasn’t so cool with the whole growing-shrinking thing that happened next, though, at least not while it was happening. It felt kind of like…what Kris’ imagined taffy felt like in the mouth of an aggressive old man who’d taken out his dentures.  
  
“The fuck?” he heard Adam say.  
  
What totally sucked, aside from everything else, was that with Kris grown a little bit taller, and Adam grown a little bit shorter, neither of them was even the right size to fit through the little door they discovered they could unlock at the other end of the room.  
  
**3: 57 p.m.**  
  
After they’d finished growing and shrinking, Adam had looked up at Kris, frowned, looked at the bottle in Kris’ hand, looked down very seriously–possibly measuring the distance to his own feet–and then said,  
  
“Well, this is a pretty fucking pathetic trip.”   
  
“Are we tripping?” Kris said dazedly. “I don’t feel like I’m tripping.”   
  
“We’re–” Adam shook himself. He looked like an oversized, glamorous puppy, and also maybe homeless–his whole ensemble a bit off, a bit too large for him. Kris' clothing, on the other hand, felt uncomfortably tight. He was suddenly very aware that his jeans were on the verge of splitting open. If he moved in the wrong direction –   
  
Adam made a small noise in his throat, but Kris hadn't looked to see how he was faring, concentrating instead on not breathing too deeply.   
  
"Can you unbutton my shirt for me before it pops?" he asked.  
  
There was a pause, and then Adam muttered, "Fuck," and moved into Kris' line of vision. Kris felt a little self-conscious, a little too large and clumsy; not like Adam, who looked perfectly at home in his new-sized skin, if irritable.  
  
"You have really long legs," Kris noted. "Even when you're short."  
  
Adam stared at him for a few seconds. "You should take off the pants, too, before they rip. This had better not be permanent," he added darkly, retreating to the other end of the room.  
  
**4:15 a.m.**  
  
Kris doesn’t _hate _being Adam-sized. It’s just strange. And disorienting.   
  
“I could totally pick you up,” he realizes. Adam’s threatening glare is pretty adorable. He’s just so little. He’s like an Adam doll.   
  
Neither of them has changed _very_ much in height; it’s like the cake and drink, whatever the hell they were, _almost _managed to cancel each other out. Still, it isn’t just height; Kris is just so much bigger than Adam now that he can’t help but reach out to maybe ruffle his hair or–   
  
“Nuh uh,” Adam says, stepping back quickly.  
  
Kris tries not to sulk.  
  
Adam is incredulous. Incredulous and _tiny_. "I don't need to feel any more kid-sized than I already do, thank you very much."   
  
"You," Kris informs him, "have been no fun all day."  
  
Adam grimaces. "I'm obviously prescient."  
  
Kris can ask what prescient means later. "Relax," he says firmly.  
  
“Help me figure out how to switch this _back_.”   
  
“Okay," Kris agrees gamely. "And then maybe we’ll finally get cell phone reception down here, too.”   
  
He knows that he should be more worried, but Kris doesn't get stressed about things he can't change. It's just not the way he's wired. They definitely need to work on a plan or something, though, plus he would like to pick mini-Adam up; because he totally could.   
  
It's the angle that’s doing this to him; it feels _off_ but somehow _not _to be able to see all of Adam at once. Like he's a stranger, made up of a million pieces that are still familiar. Kris wants to gather them all together and measure them against himself until they make sense as a whole Adam again.  
  
Adam is looking _up _at him, hazy blue through his lashes, one hand on his hip. Kris goes a little cross-eyed trying to picture whether he's ever gotten that look coming _down _at him, when Adam was the tall one and Kris was the short one.  
  
"_What_?" Kris says.  
  
Adam's expression goes bland. "What what?"  
  
Adam is impossible. "Whatever."  
  
**12: 45 p.m.**  
  
“I don't hate nature.” Adam shifted on the blanket.   
  
“'Course you don't. Just the trees, the grass...” Kris was on his stomach, eyeballing a trail of ants that were carrying off his and Adam's cracker crumbs. “The cute little bugs.”   
  
“I don't hate... _grass_.”  
  
Kris looked over his shoulder; Adam's eyebrows were raised, tiny grin curving his lips, but he was stiffly cross-legged and he didn't like _sitting _on grass, whatever else he might like to do with it. Kris rolled over and pushed Adam onto his back.  
  
“Excuse me?”  
  
“Relax.” Kris held Adam's shoulders against the blanket, and for a second he thought that Adam was going to majorly overreact to being shoved and throw him or something, which Adam was fully capable of doing, but Adam just closed his eyes, exhaled, and let his shoulders sink down. Kris settled next to him again, satisfied.  
  
“This is comfortable, right?”  
  
Adam made a noncommittal noise, so Kris kept his grin inside.  
  
**4:19 p.m.**  
  
"Do you think it's bad that _I'm _so short?" Kris says.  
  
"_What_?"  
  
"Well." He shrugs a little awkwardly. "I mean, you obviously hate it, so is it just that it feels weird for you personally, or–"  
  
"Why can't you get fixated on something useful," Adam pants, stopping for a minute and leaning against the wall, "like helping me break down this door?"  
  
"Because we've been trying," Kris says patiently, "and it won't break."  
  
"So you're just going to sit on your ass?"  
  
Kris shrugs. Yes.  
  
Adam pushes off the wall and comes to stand in front of Kris, and they're at eye level even though Kris is sitting on the little table. Kris has the sudden and startling impression that Adam is about to crawl onto his lap.  
  
Height-wise, it seems like a workable idea.  
  
"Hmm," Adam says, tilting his head to one side, and kisses him instead.  
  
**12:58 p.m.**  
  
Adam was clearly very scared of ticks; he was so _tense_ as Kris scratched at the black speck on his ankle until it came away.  
  
“I don’t think it’s a tick,” Kris determined.  
  
“That’s good.”  
  
“Yes, it is.” Adam continued to keep very still under Kris’s hands as Kris’s bent his head to look again, because Lyme disease was a serious business. “But you should be careful in the high grass.”  
  
“Okay.” Adam shifted, like maybe he wanted to move away, but Kris said,  
  
“I’m not done.”  
  
“Kris,” Adam said, not very patiently.  
  
“Not that I know what I’m looking for. Stay still.”  
  
“_Kris_,” Adam said, ignoring Kris’ important, official medical orders and starting to spin around so that his head would lie alongside Kris' – but Kris seized Adam’s ankle.  
  
Adam jumped about a foot.  
  
“Hey! A bunny!” Kris said, pushing himself up off of Adam's leg to get a better look.  
  
**4:22 p.m.**  
  
"Oh," Kris says, lucidly, into Adam's mouth.   
  
"Hmm," Adam hums encouragingly, and slides his tongue, warm and wet, right in.  
  
"But–what?" Kris says. "Oh," he adds when Adam pushes between his knees and fits right into place, right–there.   
  
"Kris," Adam murmurs, licking a stripe up Kris' neck and nuzzling into his ear, standing on his tip toes to do it, "I've just decided to approach this whole situation with a much more positive energy, that's all."  
  
"The being short thing?" Kris' hands grip Adam's floppy, too-long sleeves.  
  
"Mmm," Adam says, pressing the heel of his palm down with wonderful pressure, and it doesn't sound like agreement at all. "We'll deal with _that_ once we're out of here."  
  
"Out?" Kris pants.  
  
"The door is open," Adam says, his tongue teasing Kris' so that it takes him a full minute to notice that the rabbit has reappeared and, also, hopped up onto the table. He stares at it, and at the door that's now open at the other end of the room. Adam bites his ear.  
  
“Is that a pocket watch?” Kris says, frowning at the rabbit, who frowns right back, swinging what is definitely a pocket watch across its chest.  
  
“Who cares?” Adam says. He's straddling Kris’s thighs and balancing on his toes and doing something really excellent with his hips; he's exactly the right height for all of that. He takes Kris’s face in his hands. “We’re going to work on your priorities this time. It’s a _rabbit_."  
  
Oh, Kris thinks, arching helplessly into Adam.  
  
“That’s a really good point,” he breathes.  
  
“I _know_,” Adam says, and gets back to the kissing.


End file.
